1348

January–December

• January – Gonville Hall, the forerunner of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, England, is founded.
• January 25 – The 6.9-magnitude 1348 Friuli earthquake centered in Northern Italy is felt across Europe. Contemporary minds link the quake with the Black Death, fueling fears that the Biblical Apocalypse has arrived.
• February 2 – Battle of Strėva: the Teutonic Order secure a victory over the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Sources tell of a blow to Lithuanian leadership, one that the Teutonic Order could not fully make use of due to the Black Death.^[1][2]
• April 7 – Charles University in Prague, founded the previous year by papal bull, is granted privileges by Charles I, King of Bohemia, in a golden bull.^[3]
• April 23 – Edward III of England creates the first English order of chivalry, the Most Noble Order of the Garter.
• By June 24 – The Black Death pandemic reaches England,^[4] having probably been brought across the English Channel by fleas on rats aboard a ship from Gascony to the south coast port of Melcombe (modern-day Weymouth, Dorset);^[5][6] by November it will have reached London and by 1350 will have killed one third to a half of its population.
• July 6 – A papal bull is issued by Pope Clement VI, protecting Jews against popular aggression during the Black Death pandemic.
• November 1 – The anti-royalist Union of Valencia attacks the Jews of Murviedro because they are serfs of the King of Valencia and thus "royalists".
• November 18 – Emperor Kōmyō of Japan abdicates the throne in favour of his son Emperor Sukō, making them the second and third of the Northern Court (Ashikaga Pretenders).^[7]

Date unknown

• The Black Death pandemic spreads to central and western Europe and to Cairo.
• Stefan the Mighty, Emperor of Serbia, conquers Thessaly and Epirus.
• The Pskov Republic gains independence from the Novgorod Republic with the treaty of Bolotovo.
• Hundred Years' War (1337–1360): The effects of the Black Death cause a de facto truce to be observed between England and France until 1355.^[8]
• Estimation: Hangzhou in Mongolian China becomes the largest city of the world, taking the lead from Cairo, capital of Mamluk Egypt.^[9]

• April 11 – Andronikos IV Palaiologos, Byzantine Emperor (d. 1385)
• date unknown
  • John Fitzalan, 1st Lord Arundel (d. 1379)
  • Alice Perrers, politically active English royal mistress and courtier (d. 1400)

• February 2 – Narimantas, Christian Lithuanian prince of Pinsk (Battle of Strėva)
• June 9 – Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Sienese painter (Black Death) (b. 1290)
• June 13 – Don Juan Manuel, prince of Villena, Spanish writer (b. 1282)
• July 1 – Joan of England, princess (Black Death) (b. 1333/34)
• August 20 – Laurence Hastings, 1st Earl of Pembroke, English noble (b. 1319)
• August 23 – John de Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. c.1275)
• October 2 – Alice de Lacy, 4th Countess of Lincoln, English noblewoman (b. 1281)

• date unknown
  • Laura de Noves, French countess, presumed beloved of Petrarch (b. 1310)
  • Pietro Lorenzetti, Sienese painter (Black Death) (b. 1280)
  • Umur of Aydın, Emir (killed in action) (b. c.1309)
  • Giovanni Villani, chronicler of Florence (Black Death) (b. c. 1276)